America’s obsession with gigantic trucks is quite literally killing us. Forget climate change and the tons of carbon dioxide these monstrosities pump into the atmosphere. The effects of that aren’t quite hitting us in the face yet. But right now, or, really, since 2009, when these giant trucks started gaining popularity, the United States has seen a huge spike in pedestrian deaths that just so happens to coincide with the rise of these preposterously huge trucks, according to a sweeping investigation by the New York Times.
For decades, traffic deaths had been improving thanks to better engineering, seat belt laws, and campaigns against drunk driving, all of which combined to make roads safer. Americans inexplicably started swapping out their sedans for towering pickups and SUVs. It’s not like the US suddenly got bumpier and hillier. We were doing just fine without them, yet suddenly everyone felt like they needed to be driving a tank to feel safe and secure, and with that shift in mentality, the exact opposite happened: pedestrian fatalities shot up by 75 percent.
The problem isn’t just that these vehicles are bigger. It’s that they’re built to make them harder to drive safely and more lethal when they do get into an accident. Modern truck hoods are now nearly 4 feet high. It used to be that when a car struck a pedestrian, it hit them in the legs. Now it hits them square in the chest. Instead of rolling onto the hood, which is designed to absorb impact, pedestrians get blunt force chest trauma, and then are flung back onto the pavement for some more trauma, and then the truck rolls over them.
Smaller cars gave pedestrians a chance to survive. That chance has all but vanished.
Roughly 3,000 Pedestrian Deaths in the Last 8 Years Can Be Linked to Massive Trucks and SUVs
There’s also the matter of trucks being so big and bulky that it’s difficult to get a good enough view of the road. For instance, the big mirrors mounted on trucks seem like they provide an abundance of safety when they actually create huge blind spots that can hide children or shorter adults, or people waiting at a crosswalk. As a part of the investigation, the New York Times found that blind zones in popular pickups like the Chevrolet Silverado have nearly doubled since the 1990s. That’s a trend that should have been reversed if not eliminated by now, and yet it’s gotten worse.
The New York Times’ analysis estimates that roughly 3,000 pedestrian deaths between 2016 and 2024 can be linked to the growing size of American cars. Researchers found that every additional inch of hood height increases the likelihood of a pedestrian being killed by about 2.8 percent.
The car manufacturers responsible for creating these vehicles argue that the automatic emergency braking systems and pedestrian detection systems will solve the problem. But those systems can fail, and do, under the lightest of rain, in darkness, or even just when the roads are slightly uneven. These systems cannot reliably react when pedestrians are moving unpredictably around a truck.
Besides, none of these supposed safety measures will eliminate the basic inherent threat posed by the physics of a 6,000-pound truck with a hood taller than an adult’s center of gravity smashing into an unsuspecting person at a crosswalk.
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